Charlie Daniels Takes Issue With Taco Bell Over Illuminati Ad

Charlie Daniels doesn't take secret world domination lightly. The country music legend turned to Twitter to take Taco Bell to task over a new TV commercial that spoofs the notion of a secret society called the Illuminati.

The new spot recounts a shadowy group called the Belluminati, a takeoff on the Illuminati. According to Wikipedia, the name Illuminati historically refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded in 1776. The society's goals were "to oppose superstition, obscurantism, religious influence over public life, and abuses of state power," but it was outlawed over the years by various governments who feared its influence over sociopolitical events. The name continues to apply to a number of groups both real and fictitious, with a host of internet-based conspiracy theories suggesting that the secret society continues to this day with members placed at the highest stations across all walks of life, secretly controlling world events with its influence.

A Google search for "Illuminati" yields more than 17 million results.

The Taco Bell commercial employs much of the symbolism associated with the Illuminati, including the dollar, the pyramid and more, observing, "20 items for a dollar, 20 steps on the pyramid. Who's really behind this? Experience the power of the dollar at Taco Bell."

Daniels evidently didn't find the commercial funny when it aired during Monday's National Championship game:

The country singer frequently shares his political and social views online and in interviews, and he writes a regular column called the Soapbox that gives him room to expound further on his beliefs. In an article titled 'World Divided' in June of 2017, he wrote extensively of his belief that the Illuminati are controlling world events in an attempt to bring about "a one world government administered by the elite and their minions, a government with the ability and technical capabilities to monitor the personal lives of every person on earth, to increase and reduce the global population by abortion, euthanasia, starvation and withholding medical treatment from whomever they deem too old or otherwise incapable to contribute to their version of a Utopian global society ... Control is their goal and power is their god, state sovereignty and personal freedoms are their enemies, as is belief a divine Creator or the sanctity of family as all loyalty must belong to the all-powerful global state."

Daniels went on to cite Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as powerful figures he felt could be aligned with those goals, touting President Donald Trump as "the very antithesis of Obama-Clinton" and alleging that's why world forces are trying so hard to bring him down.

Still, Daniels warns, "they will eventually succeed ... There will be a short lived one world government, well actually more of a kingdom than a government, a rigid dictatorship ruled by the iron hand of the ultimate evil one known as the antichrist."

Daniels' Taco Bell warning has been reported on news outlets from the Huffington Post to Fox News, provoking a wide range of very interesting comments from users online, while his original tweet has garnered more than 38,000 likes, more than 13,000 shares and 1700 comments so far.